


Summer Sonnets

by mrstater



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Bad Poetry, Erotic Poetry, F/M, Nudity, Sex, Sexual Content, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:50:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"The Royina is a very great and powerful lady, I grant you, but even she cannot command the sun to burn less hotly."</i> But she can help her lady-in-waiting and her chancellor find a way to cool off on a scorching summer day. Or to heat things up even more...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Sonnets

Chancellor dy Cazaril's scalp itched as beads of perspiration formed at the roots of his hair and inched toward his forehead. He did not lift a hand to wipe them away -- his correspondence already had enough stacked against it with his poor fist for letters without adding moisture to his hands; instead, he hunched over the parchment spread across his desk, both out of deep concentration and in order to avoid the high noon sun glaring through the tall windows of his office, open in the vain hope of catching a breeze; they seemed, however, to have the same effect as an open oven door. The movement, however, only put his head at the best angle to set the sweat in rapid downward motion on his forehead. His eyes crossed at the shimmering droplet that quivered as it clung to the tip of his nose.

With a sigh, Cazaril pulled the wide sleeve of his tunic down over his hand and wiped the bead away, along with the sweat from his brow, before any drips could fall and smudge the ink he'd laboriously scratched in reply to Palli about the coming fall campaign. _Which can't arrive quickly enough, if only because autumn will bring the Chalion some relief from this infernal heat!_

At an unexpected, but wholly welcome female voice sounding from the open door, Caz paused in mopping his brow:

"Today I was reminded of a rose,  
To see a bead upon my lover's nose."

  
Cazaril lowered his hand to watch Betriz, basket in hand, slip further into his office; he struggled to keep his lips from twitching upward and a laugh from rumbling out of his throat as his wife wickedly recited:

"So pink it was from summer's noon-day heat,  
I doubt up close my lord would smell as sweet!"

  
Obligingly, Cazaril raised his arm to sniff at his pit, which made Betriz laugh; he pulled a face, which made her laugh harder still.

"If a contest were held between that bit of verse and my body's odor," Cazaril said, "the poem, I think, is the more pungent."

"And you would know, being rather a master of odoriferous poetry yourself."

"Yes, precisely." Cazaril smiled up at his wife as she braved his noxious perfumes and rounded his desk, setting her basket atop the only patch of clear space on the surface. As was becoming their custom at these midday interludes in their work days at the palace, Cazaril turned his chair toward her so she might herself upon his lap.

Only now, Betriz recoiled. "Five gods, Caz, you're drenched!"

"It's not sweat," he explained, glancing down at the tunic clinging to his chest. He'd discarded his vest cloak hours ago, the morning grown stuffy even before the sun reached its zenith. "Not all of it, anyway. I ladled water over my head to cool off."

"How can you work in here?" Betriz swiped at her own brow, then gathered up her loose, dark hair off her neck and shoulders. "It's hot as--"

"The bastard's hell?" Cazaril supplied, and she nodded. "I'll confess I'm not comfortable--"

" _Not comfortable?_ I can hardly breathe, the air is so close!"

"--and I might be working fully nude by the middle of the afternoon--"

"If you don't die of sunstroke before then!" Betriz's vehemence was undercut by her dimple appearing in her cheek. "But if you're to end up naked, I could be persuaded to stay here and watch."

Warmth rushed through Cazaril for a reason entirely unrelated to the heat of the day. "An afternoon with my lady would more refreshing than a snowfall."

"I think you're a trifle touched, my love. Your metaphors are even worse than usual. Best eat this cool melon I've brought you." She removed the cloth that covered her basket and drew out a bowl of fruit. "That is, if it _is_ cool anymore."

It was, Cazaril discovered when she popped a slice into his mouth with her fingertips. The sweet, refreshing juices trickled over lips, tongue, throat, and he closed his eyes and emitted a low sound of ecstasy as Betriz's lips touched his, briefly.

 _Too_ briefly.

He opened his eyes and was dismayed to see her turning to go.

"Please, my lady." He caught her hand. "Can not the Royina spare you a few minutes to share it with me?"

"Tempting as it is to stay and see you strip naked, I think it more urgent that I take up the chancellor's working conditions with Iselle."

In spite of a rush of mortification at the prospect of Betriz pitching a complaint to the Royina about his office -- which was far and away above anything he'd imagined for himself during that long journey to Valenda to seek a boon of the house he'd formerly served -- he could not but smile at his wife's determination. How had it taken him so long to realize _Betriz_ had been the driving force behind all his well-being last year? From physicians to prayers to hats, he had her, as much as his Lady the Daughter, to thank for his life.

He pressed his lips to her hand, which elicited a look of some pleased surprise.

"The Royina is a very great and powerful lady, I grant you," Cazaril said, "but even she cannot command the sun to burn less hotly. All the Zangre is an oven in summer. In fact, you should beg a few hours from your duties, to escape the heat of the day on our sleeping porch."

The image of Betriz, curled up, napping on her side, her lips slightly parted on her pillow -- and drooling -- was such an enticing one that Cazaril wondered if her request were granted (as it surely would be) he might take his correspondence home that he might work by her side. Or perhaps he might nap with her, and work tonight, when it would be cooler and his mind clearer...

"I have a better idea," said Betriz, kissing him again.

And then she was gone in a sweep of skirts, leaving Cazaril to roll up his parchment and sit back in his chair. He undid a couple of frogs of his tunic, popped another slice of melon into his mouth, and contemplated how Betriz would persuade Royina Iselle to command him to spend the afternoon.

* * *

"I cannot believe you convinced the Royina to grant me an afternoon recess simply because it's _hot_."

Fully dressed again, in leather vest cloak and now riding boots to the knee, Cazaril was, in fact, sweating more profusely than he had been in his office. Yet the shade of the wood outside Cardegoss gave the illusion of coolness not to be found in the sun-warmed stone citadel itself.

Riding up ahead on the narrow trail, Betriz twisted in her saddle to look back at him. Her face was serious, except for the tell-tale dimple, which belied her merriment -- and mischief. "Can't you? This isn't the first time."

"I haven't had a holiday since I took up the chancellery--" Cazaril bit off his words and reined in his horse as, dimple deepening in her cheek, Betriz urged her mount around to face him. "You don't mean last summer in Valenda...the swimming lessons...I thought _Iselle_ was hot!"

"Oh, she was. We both were. Especially me."

Betriz's voice had dropped to the low, teasing pitch to which Cazaril had not quite grown accustomed in their three months of marriage -- though he certainly relished each and every opportunity (there were many) his amorous bride provided him to become more so; and he thanked Royina Iselle and the Lady of Summer for this unexpected boon today.

Urging his horse alongside Betriz's, he inclined his head to her, reveling in the warmth of her breath on his neck prickling up goose bumps and making the fine hairs at his nape stand, despite the heat and humidity of the day when she said, "I wanted you to see me in rather fewer clothes than usual."

Cazaril's mouth fell open, and he continued to gawp in the middle of the road for a moment after Betriz pecked his cheek and then flicked the reins to encourage her mount onward.

Finding his voice, Cazaril dug his knees into his horse's sides. "You _knew!_ "

"Knew what?" Betriz's profile was a picture of innocence Cazaril knew better than to trust.

"How my body was affected by the sight of you in a clinging wet shift."

 _Only you could be three months wedded and bedded and blush like a virgin to say such a thing. And to your wife, too._

"Did you see my, um, arousal?" His voice pushed out of his throat pinched with his embarrassment. "Or did Sera Nan dy Vrit tell you of it, for I'm sure she noticed. Or..." He swallowed painfully. "Or Iselle?"

"Can you truly imagine it's possible to be discreet about being in that state?" was Betriz's evasive reply, made through outright laughter.

"Yes, well, you could not have been any more lewd if you'd swum naked."

"In that case, I shall not wet my shift today."

For they had just ridden into a glen with a pool, so clear and still that it mirrored the trees that ensconced them, the surface rippling only slightly under the occasional weight of a pausing dragonfly. Without waiting for Cazaril to dismount and offer her a hand down, Betriz slid from her saddle and lost no time unfastening the various laces, buttons, and buckles of her outer garments.

"Iselle sends her deepest regrets that she could not attend upon us for old times' sake. Although _I_ cannot even for nostalgia wish her here." She draped her riding jacket and skirt over her saddle and cast an appraising eye up at Cazaril, still seated in his, feet yet in the stirrups. "Or I could not, if you'd show any sign of joining me for a swim."

She plopped down on a flat rock beside the pool and tugged off her boots, then her stockings, her shift hitching up above her knees as she peeled the thin fabric down her long, shapely legs.

" _Caz_ aril! I'm taking off my clothes, for the five gods' sake!"

Her tone brooked no response save obedience, and he swung from his saddle, tethering the horses to graze on the patches of scraggly grass that managed to grow in the well-shaded thicket.

"By all means, my lady, commence."

His fingers would have fumbled with the frogs of his vest cloak even if they had not been disfigured, at the sight of Betriz's pulling at the at the ties at the neck of her shift. Slowly, provocatively baring the rounded tops of her breasts as the garment slipped from her shoulders.

To Cazaril's disappointment, she caught the underdress and clutched it in front of her. "I think we ought to disrobe at the same rate, don't you?"

Cazaril hastened to shed vest cloak, tunic, and trousers, grinning just the slightest bit sheepishly at her as he stood in billowing shirt and trews in the middle of the wood. But Betriz pursed her lips in disapproval.

"If I am wearing nothing, you shall be rather overdressed. And there is nothing that makes one more self-conscious than being unsuitably dressed, is there, Chancellor dy Cazaril?"

 _Except for a back that has plainly been flogged._ Cazaril tried not to let this thought show on his face -- though he would have been surprised if Betriz did not read his mind. He was _trying_ to overcome his anxieties about his bodily imperfections, truly, he was. But--

"But what if someone should chance upon us?"

"They won't."

Betriz drew near, her shift falling to the ground as she reached for the laces of Cazaril's shirt. He covered her hands on his chest, preventing her from untying the strings. The shame of that incident at the baths was still too near. He must make himself clearer.

"What if someone should _see_...?

Understanding flashed in Betriz's eyes -- then something else as she smiled up at him from beneath her long lashes. _Vixen. Minx_.

"Of course someone will -- _me_."

Another thing Cazaril was still learning to accept in married life was the difficulty of thinking about mortifications he'd endured in the past when his wife's velvet eyes were darkening in desire as they raked over him. Especially when _his_ eyes were doing the same to her exquisite nude form, which now included his own hands curving over her pert breasts, his thumbs stroking the so-soft skin underneath, her nipples hardening between his roughened fingers. _He_ was hardening without her hands coming anywhere near the sensitive bits of his anatomy.

Although, he wondered if some of his arousal might have to do with the very idea of being with Betriz in this way outside the confines of their bedchamber. In the chancellor's apartments in Cardegoss, he'd found himself wanting to make love with his wife in any number of places other than their bed: against a wall in a darkened corridor, on the sleeping porch overlooking the city, in the garden among the heady scents of herbs and flowers. He'd even fought the temptation to lay her on his desk, official papers and all, in his office in the Zangre during one of their midday trysts. But always there had been servants underfoot. He wanted privacy to express his love to his wife so publicly!

A chuckle at this contradiction required him to voice these thoughts to Betriz, during which recital Cazaril found himself divested of shirt and then stripping off his trews, at one point hopping on one foot to tug them off his other leg as they made their way down to the pool.

When he'd finished undressing and speaking, Betriz regarded him with approval and amusement. He couldn't be sure which was at his state of undress and which at his words, until she said, "You _are_ the chancellor, you know. It may come as a bit of a shock, but the office grants you the authority to actually _order servants away_ should you take the whim."

"I think you underestimate the frequency at which I take such whims. I fear I would be in danger of abusing my authority even more than my predecess--Ow!"

Cazaril had just stepped into the clear water, but immediately withdrew his toes. "Father of Winter, that's _cold!_ "

Betriz glanced sideways at him before leaping in courageously, ducking fully under the water. She emerged with a smirk as she pushed her thick, sopping hair out of her face. "We _did_ come here to cool off, Caz."

"I do not think we shall be doing any such thing." The water was frigid, but he waded in, as if bespelled by the glimmering beads of water dropping from the ends of her hair and rolling over her breasts. "I feel a little poetry coming on."

"Oh dear."

"My lady has the most alluring dimple,  
And fluid jewels cling to her pink--"

  
His rhyme was lost in a mouthful of water as Betriz dunked him under.


End file.
